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Comment by mnd999 | Hacker News Reader

Remote only is short sighted. It might work okay for your experienced workforce, but for junior hires, especially new graduates, they get a lot from working alongside more experienced people. And when you’re young you want to go for drinks after work and socialise with colleagues. If you can’t keep the junior employees then your company has no future.

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I work in a role where help I ramp a lot of recent graduates into industry.

I can say this comment doesn't comport with my experience. The kids are alright.

One old practice that has helped a lot is pair programming. I employ strong-style pairing when I work with a new hire which helps them ramp up on our practices quickly IME.

A new practice which has helped immensely are in-person "burst weeks" every 3 months or so. It isn't the same as spontainiously grabbing drinks after work, but it definitely helps to build team camaraderie.

I also work with a lot devs starting out in their careers and I stand by my comment.

IME the "top" junior engineers are still fine. They can figure out things on their. But the "mid-tier" ones really end up worse off. With proper mentorship and training they might be able to reach, say, 8/10, but with everything remote they end up at 5/10. Basically I haven't noticed the top end of new engineers getting worse, but the average definitely has.

And the "bottom tier" is definitely far far worse. It seems they just get jobs to work the minimum amount and barely do anything (r/overemployed perhaps)

I'm about to leave my job if they don't get enough office space for us. They downgraded to a coworking space with no monitors and not enough desks. I'll never take another fully remote job. 3 years remote at different companies and it's hell.

>And when you’re young you want to go for drinks after work and socialise with colleagues.

And risk getting fired when you say something stupid. And force those with anxiety issues into forced socialization.

What if you're disabled and have mobility issues ? Getting to an office everyday doesn't sound too fun.

Don’t say something stupid. I’m guessing socialising isn’t for you and that’s fine, work from home. I’m not suggesting office is for all or for every day, but it should be an option for those that want to go.

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